Berlin, 2078 — Four Days After Arrival
The train that carried them into Berlin left behind more than just the Austrian hills. It left behind years of blood, scars, frost, and a silence that had become muscle memory.
Now the wolves were home — though Berlin no longer felt like home.
The rain hadn't stopped for days. It soaked the city's bones, crawling between steel and stone like it remembered them. Neon signs flickered over cracked pavement. Nothing had changed, and yet, everything was different.
They moved together through Sector 5 — quiet, fast, unnoticed.
Jacquel Ravyn led, taller than the others, his coat brushing against puddled glass.
Beside him strode Caelum, eyes flicking to every reflective surface, searching for ghosts.
Sasha Kroos followed, unreadable, her presence sharp even in stillness.
And behind them, dragging a duffel and grinning like death hadn't found him yet — Seth Lorne.
Four of them.
The last time they were here, they were children being hunted. Now they returned as something else entirely.
"Still smells like burnt cables," Seth muttered, staring at the skyline. "City's soul never really healed."
Caelum didn't respond. He was watching a shadow that wasn't moving with the wind. But it disappeared before he could blink again.
"Lower your voice," Jacquel said softly.
They crossed into an alley just beneath the wreckage of an old museum. Their pace didn't slow, but their presence changed the air — like wolves moving through sheep fields.
"We'll rest at the observatory," Jacquel said. "No signals. No lights. No noise."
Sasha nodded. Seth gave a sarcastic salute. Caelum just kept walking, jaw tight.
—
Elsewhere in Berlin, hidden beneath Genitek's Core Research Tower, a monitor beeped in silence.
Dr. Nikola Kimmich, senior Neuroxite researcher and ranking Shadow Agency official, stared at the heat signatures on-screen.
Four of them.
"Project Ravyn has returned," he muttered.
A figure in the shadows behind him shifted. No face visible. Only a voice — modulated and cold.
"Are they stable?"
"Too early to say," Kimmich said. "But they've brought an outsider. The Lorne boy."
"And the girl?"
"Still with them. More dangerous than we predicted. Kroos has deviated from original neural mapping."
Silence.
Then: "Send no agents yet. Let the city greet them first."
Kimmich nodded, eyes never leaving the screen. "Understood."
He tapped a key, and all four signatures were tagged: Caelum. Jacquel. Sasha. Seth.
For now, Genitek would observe.
—
Back in the heart of the city, the group reached the rusted gates of the old observatory — the last known safe house tied to their mother.
Jacquel broke the lock without effort. Caelum entered first, scanning the upper levels, then signaling clear. The building still smelled of dust, ash, and something else — like unspoken memory.
Sasha walked to the balcony, staring at Berlin's Core Tower in the distance. Seth dropped onto a couch with a groan. Jacquel remained near the door.
Caelum sat cross-legged on the floor, pulling out a cracked photo from his coat — their mother, holding both brothers as infants.
He didn't show it to the others.
"Why here?" Seth asked suddenly.
Jacquel answered without turning. "Because no one remembers it."
Sasha looked over her shoulder. "Yet someone's watching."
Jacquel's eyes narrowed.
Caelum looked up. "We let them."
No more words.
Outside, thunder cracked low over Berlin — not from the sky, but from the underground railways that led deeper into Genitek's secret district.
Something beneath the city had stirred.
And it remembered the Ravyns.
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